Tonality Drawings: Student Work

Each class in the Drawing Workshop focuses on a different formal topic. The focus of the third class was tonality, or shading. To make a tonality drawing, one cannot leave any visible outlines, or contour lines. This technique requires a lot of patience, as one must slowly build up layers of graphite to blend the tones and achieve enough contrast. My students did a great job on this assignment! Check out their work! 

Some other artists we looked to for inspiration on this technique are: Georges Seurat and David Musgrave. Just click on their name to see some of the examples of their work that we looked at during class.

Subtle Tones from John Ruskin to David Musgrave

 I was really struck by the similarity of these two drawings, made by artists from completely different eras. Both show a very nuanced use of tonal gradation to achieve a realistic effect, capturing the delicate texture of a leaf.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) helped to define the Victorian era as a great thinker and artist of the time. He was a Naturalist, artist, writer and social critic.

David Musgrave (b. 1973) is a contemporary conceptual artist working in London. I wonder if he was influenced by Ruskin? Looks like that is highly probable!

More information about both artists:
- Ruskin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin
- Musgrave (also some great images here!!) http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/david-musgrave

Can you guess which drawing is by Ruskin and which by Musgrave? (answer below)

* top: Ruskin, bottom: Musgrave

Homework: tonal gradation and facial proportions

In order to fit more drawing time into the next class, please complete the following exercises at home and bring them with you on Monday. This means we can cover tonality and get an introduction to portrait drawing on the same day! Thanks class!

Reminder: Bring a mirror large enough to see your entire face at one time.

Student work: 20 minute portrait drawing 

1) Tonal Gradation
Time to get to know your pencils! H stands for hard (lighter) and B stands for black (darker), and F stands for fine point (used for detail, also a hard pencil). Higher number B means darker still, higher number H means lighter still. This all varies with brand, and most especially, with the touch of the person drawing. Press very hard with an HB (a middle-range grey) and very soft with a B, and what do you know? The HB looks darker! So what I recommend is to test this all out on your own.
- Make a rectangular box, approximately 5 cm x 20 cm.
- Use your darkest (softest B) pencil to make your blackest possible black on one side.
- The other end should remain white.
- Use all your pencils to fill in the gradation in between, making the transitions as smooth at possible.
- You might want to try this a couple more times with different pencil combinations.

2) Facial Proportions

Copy this diagram of facial proportions, measuring and correcting as you go.

• Middle of the eyes are in the middle of the head.
• Bottom of the nose is half way between eyes and bottom of chin.
• Mouth (measured from between lips) is less than half way between bottom of nose and bottom of chin.
• Head is 5 eyes wide.

Here is another useful measurement for profiles.

Placing the ear in profile. (Betty Edwards)

Human skull for reference!

Another diagram to reference for facial proportions.

Of course every individual has some slight variations in his or her facial proportions and structure, as exhibited so well here by David Hockney. He actually drew these portraits of security guards at an art museum with the aid of a Camera Lucida. 

"Twelve Portraits After Ingres" by David Hockney

And here is everybody using viewfinders during the last class! Speaking of optical devices (David Hockney and Camera Lucida), I just had to share this photo!

William Kentridge and Tonality

I like to show the drawings of the South African artist William Kentridge in my Drawing Workshop when we learn about tonality. I always try to show examples from at least one contemporary artist, even when going over the most fundamental drawing principles. 

What one might not realize, when looking at the drawings, is that many of them are actually stills from his short animation films. The charcoal drawing are worked over and photographed during the process, resulting in stop-motion animation. 

William Kentridge

William Kentridge

I promised my students from the Winter Drawing Workshop that we would watch this video from the great artist William Kentridge. But then we got so absorbed in our drawings that we never got around to it, so I am posting it here. Below is the film "Automatic Writing". 

If you want to learn more about how Kentridge creates the animation, here is a video where he explains his unique process.

Tonality and Seurat

I love to share these these drawings by Georges Seurat with my class when we learn about Tonality. Seurat is the artist most associated with Pointillism, that off shoot of Impressionism. But his drawings offer a subtle insight into the technique of rendering form only through value shifts, or tonality. Notice the complete lack of contour lines!

Seated Boy (study for Bathing Place, Asnieres), 1883. Conte Crayon on paper.

Reclining Man (study for Bathing Place), 1883. Conte Crayon on paper.

The Echo (study for Bathing Place), 1883. Conte Crayon on paper.

MoMA has put together a really nice online version of their 2008 Exhibition of Seurat's drawings.  http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/seurat/

Enjoy! If you want to learn more about these techniques, join the Drawing Workshop!

See some tonality drawings from my students in the Drawing Workshop: HERE

student drawing: tonality

Student Work from the Fall Drawing Workshop

See what the Fall Drawing Workshop created! Below is a selection of drawings from the last class from a variety of exercises. Topics ranged from Negative Space to Tonality, from portrait drawing to still-life, from figure drawing to drawing taxidermy. At the end of the class, we mounted this exhibition and had a reception/ open house.

Student Work on Display at the Drawing Workshop Open House
January 15, 2012